


Waiting for Waverly

by freeradicals



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: F/F, References to Depression, Wayhaught - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:15:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25778023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freeradicals/pseuds/freeradicals
Summary: One-shot imagining of how Nicole spent the 18 months, three weeks and four days.
Relationships: Waverly Earp & Nicole Haught, Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught
Comments: 1
Kudos: 54





	Waiting for Waverly

When Nicole got back to the Homestead her first priority was her leg. It was broken, but not beyond repair. If she could just get it set, she’d be on her way to good as new, or somewhere close, when Waverly, Wynonna and Doc returned. Then, she could help them fight whatever demons came next. Even if they were the kind that were on the inside. 

She stayed this way the whole first week, propped up on a porch chair, her shot gun settled against the arm rest. She entertained the thought of returning to the station, of being the Sheriff again, but she didn’t want Waverly to come home to find the Homestead empty. So instead, she shuffled around the house, fixing it up, so when they did get back, nothing would be out of place, nothing would be wrong.

She imagined them all walking through the door. Wynonna quipping about Nicole turning into a housewife, Doc tipping his hat and apologizing for dirtying the floor with his muddy boots and Waverly…she imagined everything about Waverly. The laugh like Christmas. The smile that swallows all of Nicole’s worries whole. The way she’d begun to smell like vanilla dipped donuts after they’d started using the same laundry detergent. 

The imagining kept Nicole from the nauseating ghost of dread that followed her from room to room, haunting her as she haunted the Homestead. 

She imagined Wynonna standing in the doorway, bottle in hand, so she didn’t imagine those hands clawing at a demon as it forced the life out of her. She imagined Doc shooting his pistols in the yard, hearing the fracturing of glass as bullets collided with bottles, so she didn’t imagine his eyes wild, peeled back in alarm as he tried save their girls. She imagined Waverly wrapped up in blankets in front of the bonfire, the bonus one getting casted off as she climbed onto Nicole’s lap and buried her lips into Nicole’s neck, so she wouldn’t imagine those lips calling out in terror. 

Rachel had ventured into town and recounted how things were changing, it seemed for the worse. After Nicole’s leg healed, Rachel suggested gently, then forcefully, that they should do something and maybe that something should be leaving. 

But, Nicole just kept imaging. A world where they’d come back. Where she wasn’t counting down the days since she saw Waverly. Where that number was zero instead of 10, then 64, then 127, then 259, then 386, then, then, then. Purgatory devolved into hell while Nicole sat, counting in limbo, waiting for her angel to return from heaven.

She was aware that her renderings of the people she loved had begun to take on a home video quality becoming static and smooth. Did Waverly’s eyes really crinkle that much when she laughed? Was Doc’s mustache really that full? Was Wynonna’s ass really that top shelf?

One night somewhere towards the end, she’d found her way deep into the liquid lake of Wynonna’s whiskey stash and she began to lose sight of the shore. Suddenly, the Homestead wasn’t a palace to protect. It was a cage and whoever was supposed to let her out had abandoned her. She’d spent so long hoping they’d come back and free her, but she was running out of road on this endless stretch of uncertainty. 

Drowning, she began to feel a current of want so strong, it pulled her under. She wanted to be free of the cage. She wanted to not feel trapped among the wooden walls and the worry. She wanted to not feel stuck and scared. 

As the waves washed over her, she began to think that maybe Waverly was going to be in the garden forever, that she’d never be coming to curl up by the bonfire, or in their bed or in Nicole’s arms. And Nicole had been good. She had helped people down here, maybe she could join Waverly up there. Maybe no one was coming with the key, maybe she need to free herself. Maybe she shouldn’t have been waiting for Waverly. Maybe Waverly was waiting for her. 

But, Rachel had swam out to the middle of the lake and wrestled the rye away from her and dragged her to shore, putting Nicole to bed on the couch, draping her in the bonus blanket. And when Nicole woke up, she remembered she wasn’t the only one in this house. She couldn’t, wouldn’t leave Rachel, not when Randy Nedley never left her. 

And this, she knew with startling clarity after getting so close to forgetting it: Waverly was not waiting for her at the top of those stairs. Waverly was fighting like hell to get back down to her. And Nicole would fight like hell to stay here for her. 

So, Nicole kept imaging her, because it was the only way she could get through each day. She imagined her in the kitchen, in the barn, shoulder to shoulder fighting off intruders, in their bed, on the porch, at the bathroom sink. Waverly teased Nicole for burning the corn muffins because they’d gotten caught up in each other. Nicole lifted Waverly up so she could put the tampon angel on top of the tree. And on Nicole’s birthday, Waverly reprised her cheerleading routine, outfit and all.

And when Nicole found herself slipping back into the lake, noticing the emptiness of the room, she’d plug them all, Waverly and Wynonna and Doc, into the silence of the space, like actors in a scene. 

So, on one of those dark days, when she’d found her angel standing before her, she assumed Waverly was just playing her part. But then, this Waverly smiled in a way that felt actual, not imagined. In a way that felt so true, Nicole forced herself to finally ask, “Are you real?”


End file.
